


It's good to see you....again.

by klainewarblers



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Teacher AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 05:29:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20058778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klainewarblers/pseuds/klainewarblers
Summary: Patrick Brewer, a 2nd Grade teacher at Elmdale Elementary School meets David Rose. Again, and again, and again.





	It's good to see you....again.

Patrick grimaced as he took a sip of his now cold cup of tea. He placed it down on his desk and sat back on his chair with a heavy sigh. It was rare that Patrick got a moment to himself during his work day but with the children at lunch, his marking complete and his afternoon free due to a guest speaker, he had a spare 10 minutes at his disposal.

Patrick Brewer didn’t always want to be a teacher. In fact, he’d worked hard and gained his business degree in college with a vision of becoming an entrepreneur with a few successful businesses to his name. He’d put his degree to good use of course, but only for a few years. It became very tedious very quickly and Patrick wanted more. He needed more.

It wasn’t until he broke off his very long engagement to his high school sweetheart that Patrick decided that enough was enough. He used all the money he’d saved for his wedding, moved out of the godawful tiny apartment he shared with Rachel and enrolled himself into a teacher training program.

Now here he was. Teaching 2nd graders in the small down of Elmdale.

Picking up his cold tea, Patrick made his way to the teachers lounge, smiling contently to those who passed him by. He made a fresh tea and stopped by the office on his way back to his classroom.

“Hi, Mrs Peters.” Patrick sweetly smiled at the lady behind the desk.

“Oh, Mr Brewer! Just the man I needed to see. Your guest speaker has arrived. Do you want to take them around now?” Mrs Peters pointed to the chairs beside her desk where two men were seated. Patrick nodded his head, winked and flashed Mrs Peters another smile before walking towards his guest.

“Hi, Mr Rose? I’m Patrick Brewer. It’ll be my class you’re speaking to this afternoon.”

The elder of the two gentlemen stood quickly and shook Patrick’s hand vigorously. “Well it’s good to meet you, Patrick. Please call me Johnny. This is my son, David. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve brought him along too. I thought he might use the inspiration.”

Patrick looked away from Mr Rose towards the aforementioned son. Clad in a chunky black sweater, ripped black jeans and black high tops, the younger of the Rose men looked tremendously out of place in the bright halls of Elmdale Elementary School, especially considering it was the height of summer. “I don’t really know how much inspiration I could gain from germ-ridden snot bags, Dad.” The man huffed, not looking up from where he was inspecting his cuticles. “I think I’ll wait here.”

Johnny Rose muttered something under his breath then walked over to Mrs Peters behind the desk, getting himself and David a visitors pass.

A small smirk crept upon Patrick’s face as he gazed at David. “Oh, come on. I’m not that bad.” He heard himself say before he’d really thought about it. One of David’s very defined brows shot up and his eyes flickered towards Patrick, who stood with one hand on his hip and the other holding his mug of tea. Patrick continued to smirk as the other man gaped at him. “I meant the…small people. Not you.”

“Mmm.” Patrick nodded with a knowing look. “Why don’t you just sit at the back away from the ‘germ ridden snot bags’? Mr Rose is giving a talk to my class about the Rose Video empire and then you can leave. It’ll beat sitting out here. Mrs Peters is about to crack open her egg sandwich and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be here when she does.”

David’s face twisted as his fists clenched on his lap. “Fine. But I will be holding you fully responsible and sending you my medical bills if I catch anything.”

Patrick huffed out a laugh at the other man’s dramatics. “Totally fine.”

Patrick led to Rose’s through the school to his classroom, an amused expression etched onto him at the truly appalled look on David’s face . Jonny Rose spoke animatedly to Patrick about his excitement for being able to motivate the future generation of business men and women and the amazing ‘rags to riches’ stories he could inspire.

The Rose Video talk went as well as it could have gone with a class of seven year olds who had very limited understanding on videos being more than just something they saw on YouTube. Johnny Rose spent longer showing them VHS tapes and DVD’s than he did on his empire but everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. Well, everyone apart from David Rose who spent most of the time looking around the room and flicking through the children’s work books with a pained expression on his face.

After they were done, Patrick showed his guests to the main office, watching as they walked back to their car. He felt his gaze linger on David Rose a little longer than he expected and he felt his heart thump quicker in his chest.

Huh.

That was new.

*****

Saturday’s for Patrick Brewer were spent grocery shopping, meeting up with friends and catching a baseball game if he could. More often than not, he’d bump into a parent of a child in his class or a colleague work from on his trips into town which he didn’t really mind. He’d fallen into a routine. Patrick liked routine and structure, so his little Saturday rituals suited him fine.

This Saturday was a tiny bit different. Instead of going straight to the grocery store, Patrick headed towards the Blouse Barn to pick up some jewellery for his mom whose birthday was coming up. As soon as he pushed open the door, a loud voice pierced through the room.

“I am simply flabbergasted by the shire non-existence of decorum by this sales assistant! How could one not know if anything in this godforsaken store is made of something other than polyester?!”

Patrick looked up towards the voice and saw a very over dressed woman in a bright red wig shaking a sheer shirt at a very confused looking sales assistant. Beside her was a tall, dark and handsome man who had his hand on the woman’s shoulder, trying to calm her down he suspects. Patrick’s eyes squinted a little as he gave the man another look. He recognised that man.

_David Rose. _

The man he met last month at the school.

The man with a seemingly strong aversion to children.

The man who had crossed Patrick Brewer’s thoughts more than a few times in the last month.

David was facing away from Patrick which allowed him to walk around to find the bracelet he wanted for his mother, before coming up behind the pair, the woman still squawking at the poor girl behind the counter.

Hearing somebody behind him, David turned around poised to apologise for him having to wait. As soon as his gaze met Patrick’s, he stopped in his tracks.

“Mr…Brewer…from the school?” He said.

“David Rose. The man who hates children.”

“Untrue!” David exclaimed. “I just…think they’re gross.”

Patrick laughed, which was quickly cut off by the woman standing next to David who threw the shirt angrily on the counter with a shout. “We are done here, David.” She linked her arm with David and pulled him towards the door. Before he was pulled fully out of the shop, David turned his head to look at Patrick.

“It was nice seeing you again, Mr Brewer.”

Patrick lifted his arm to give a small wave in David’s direction. “You too…”

Oh.

_Thump_

Oh wow.

_Thumpthumpthump_

This was _very_ new.

*

The stadium was full of beer and hot dog filled excited Toronto Blue Jay’s fans ready to watch their team annihilate the competition. Patrick had been invited to the game by some guys he worked with and he was happy to be spending the evening in the city after a difficult week at school.

A baseball stadium in Toronto was the last place he expected to find David Rose.

It was Patrick’s turn to get the beers in so he quickly made his way to the kiosk at the top of the stadium.

“Okay I know I complained about you dragging me to The Sports but I think these hot dogs are worth it.”

Patrick’s eyes follow the voice and a smile burst onto his face.

David Rose.

_Thumpthumpthump_

Patrick coughed, alerting David and the shorter woman with darker hair to his presence. “Hi” He said.

“Mr Brewer!” David explain, his smile matching Patrick’s. “Stevie, This is Mr Brewer, he works that the school my dad gave that talk in.”

Patrick looked towards Stevie and gave her a smile. “Patrick. My name’s Patrick.”

“Ah, so you’re the mid-ranged denim, blue sweater wearing, cute as a button 2nd grade teacher that’s been mentioned a few times!” Stevie’s gleeful smirk didn’t faulter, even when David slapped her on the arm.

“The mid…what?”

“Okay!” David interrupted, screwing up his now finished hot dog napkin. “This was fun! It was nice running into you Mr…Patrick. Patrick.” As quick as it all started, David pulled Stevie away, leaving Patrick with and confused yet amused smile.

*

It was field drip day for Mr Brewer’s class of 2nd Graders. Lunches were packed, the bus was full and the children were excited to go to Elm Falls Park. If you ask most teachers, they will say that field trips are one of the most stressful things about teaching. For Patrick, this was very different. He _loved_ field trips. He loved taking his classes out into the world and getting them to try things they probably hadn’t experienced before.

The bus ride to the adventure park didn’t take long. After the children had been given a very thorough safety talk and were safely put into their safety gear, it was time to climb! What kind of teacher would Patrick be if he didn’t join in? So of course, he was also dressed in the climbing gear. Perhaps he was more excited than the children and the parent volunteers (though it wasn’t hard to be more excited than the parent volunteers…).

Gleeful shouting, loud cheers and cries of laughter could be heard all around as Patrick and his class made their way through the trees. They weren’t too far from the end of the course when they hit a snag.

“Mr Brewer!” One of the children called back. “Mr Brewer! I can’t go on the next bit. A man is stuck!” Patrick tried to peer past the few children that were in front of him to try and work out what was going on. In the distance, he could see a man in a white t-shirt and sweat pants clinging on desperately, with two other people on the platform in front of him trying to coax him towards the end.

He gave the man a few minutes more before some of the children behind Patricks started to whine, others starting to get a bit worried. Carefully, Patrick climbed over the children in front of him until he reached the girl who first called to him. She pointed at the man. “He’s been there for ages. He keeps shouting at the woman.” Patrick gave the girl a few reassuring words and then looked towards the man.

Oh.

It couldn’t be.

Was that…..

“David?” Patrick called, putting his hand on his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun. “David Rose? Is that you?”

Shakily, the man in question looked around. “Patrick! What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Language!” Patrick groaned, motioned behind him to where a few of the children in his class had heard David and began giggling.

“Sorry…I uh…I’m stuck.”

“I can see that, I’m coming to help.”

Carefully, Patrick moved between the logs, holding onto the rope to pull him across. “There’s only 10 more steps until the end. I won’t let you fall.” Patrick said as he approached David, who was still clinging onto the rope.

“Yeah that’s 10 steps too many.”

“I’m right behind you, David. You’ve come this far already, only a bit more to go.” Patrick put a comforting hand on David’s back. “I’ll walk with you.”

“But this one is wobbly. It’s going to break. I can feel it.” David wined pathetically, clinging harder to the rope.

“_David!” _A whine came from the tall woman on platform a few feet ahead of them. “Just imagine you’re not really 20 feet in the air!”

“Closer to 30 feet actually Bud, but yes, David. Just close your eyes and walk!” The man beside her said.

David lifted his head and looked at Patrick, who gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m right here. You won’t fall, the logs won’t break. Take a step, David.”

Very, very shakily, David took a step onto the next log, Patrick close behind him. Behind them, Patrick could hear his class cheering.

It took longer than Patrick through possible, but David _finally_ made it to the platform. Patrick’s entire class erupted into cheers, most of them waving their arms enthusiastically and calling out words of congratulations.

The two people who were already on the platform attempted to pull David into a hug, but David instantly held out his hand, telling them sharply ‘No!” The pair soon climbed down the ladder, leaving David and Patrick alone on the platform.

“So….thanks…” David started. “This is super embarrassing and I want to pretend this never happened.”

Patrick tried to hold back a laugh but he couldn’t help it. “I’d say we’d forget this ever happened but there are 25 germ-ridden snot bags behind me that saw the whole thing.”

Groaning, David covered face with his hands, prompting another laugh from Patrick. “I uh, I have to get back to them. The snot bags. But it was nice to see you. Again.”

David opened his mouth to say something and then stopped, turning to face the ladder and climb down.

Patrick watched him for a second and took a big deep breath. It was no coincidence that they kept running into each other, surely. “Wait!” Patrick cried. “Coffee.”

David looked up at Patrick from where he was beginning his decent from the tree via a very, in David’s opinion, unsteady ladder. “Pairs excellently with carrot cake.”

Patrick bit back a smile. “What I meant to say was do you want to get a coffee. At some point. With me. If you want.” He words came out in a breathless rush.

David’s lips twisted into a small smile. “Okay. Coffee.”

*****

Patrick sat nervously at a table at the agreed upon café. His fingers tapped nervously against the table as he watched the door carefully. He had agreed to meet David at 3pm. It was now 3.05pm and there was still no David. Patrick was on his second tea (okay he’s been here since 2.15….he really didn’t want to be late) and the longer he waited, the more anxious he got.

He’d only ever dated women.

He’d only ever had feelings for women.

Patrick was 32 and had only ever dated women and only ever had feelings for women but here he was. Waiting for his date. Who was a man.

He took a shaky breath and took another sip of his tea. There was something different about David. The feeling he got in his chest when he saw him was unlike any other feeling he’d had before, not even when he was with Rachel and he nearly married her. Patrick wasn’t entirely sure what this was. What this meant. Was he gay? Was he bi? He didn’t know, but he wasn’t afraid. Curious, yes.

Fingers still tapping on the table, Patrick continued to look at the door. It was now 3.11pm. No David. Patrick wished he had David’s number so he could call.

3.15pm.

3.20pm.

3.25pm.

Patrick thought about getting up and leaving, his heart heavy, when the barista asked him if he was okay.

The bell above the door dinged. In walked David.

_David_.

David looked around wildly but as soon as he saw Patrick, his face softened and he quickly sauntered over.

“I’m sorry I’m late. Awful first impression…” He said in a rush which made Patrick smile.

“Actually my first impression of you was when you called my class snot…” David groaned. “Okay, I already said sorry. “

“No you didn’t”

“But I was.”

“Okay, David…”

Conversation flowed easily. Very easily. Their conversations had more ease than any conversation Patrick had ever had with anybody else. They spoke about how The Rose’s lost all of their money and ended up in Schitt’s Creek, about David’s abysmal currently non-existent love life, they spoke about Patrick’s engagement, his move, his career change. Patrick didn’t realise it was possible to learn so much about a person in such a short amount of time. Before they knew it, the same barista walked by their table and told them they were closing.

“Wow…it’s nearly 6. Did we really just talk for 2 hours?” David said, watching as Patrick slipped on his coat, nodding his head with a sweet smile. There was a nagging feeling under his skin that told him he wasn’t quite ready to part ways with this man yet. “Do you like ice cream?”

“Do I like ice cream?” David barked out a laugh. “Elmdale don’t have a scoop big enough.”

Patrick led them to a sweet little shop that sold some of the most delicious ice cream that Patrick had ever had. Once they had their cups, they found a bench to sit on and eat.

“So I’ve been curious about something.” Patrick started, watching David take a rather large mouthful of his ice cream. David just made a noise to convey ‘go on’. “Your dad said something about you needing inspiration when I first met you. I guess I’ve been curious about what you might possibly need inspiration for.”

As Patrick spoke, David studied the other man’s face carefully. He finished his mouthful of ice cream and put down his mini spoon. “I’m an artist.” He said quietly. “Well…I was. I painted, mostly. But I liked sketching. I haven’t done it much since I moved to Schitt’s Creek. It reminds me too much of what I’ve lost.” David sighed a little and started to lightly stab his ice cream with his fork. “Someone my family knows has written a book. For kids. A kid’s book. My dad suggested maybe I illustrate it but I don’t really want to. He’s trying to convince me to do it, trying to help me find the motivation to do it.” He shrugged and took another mouthful of ice cream. “I mostly painted people. Life drawing. Sometimes I’d draw animals or the ocean. I don’t know why they’d think I’d be good at drawing stuff for…kids.”

Patrick listened intently, his body faced towards David. A shy smile tugged at his lips. “I’d love to see your art, David.” He said tenderly. “As for the illustrating…that’s for you to decide. If you don’t want to, you shouldn’t have to. Though speaking from experience, it could be good for you to try something new. Something outside of your comfort zone. Taking risks is…it’s scary. It’s different. It’s unknown but it could lead to something great.”

David’s hand slipped onto Patrick’s thigh and gave a gentle squeeze. “Thank you, Patrick.”

Their gaze lingered. Patrick’s eyes dropped down to David’s lips, then back up again just in time to catch David do the same. David leaned in and ever so gently brushed their lips together. With his free hand, Patrick carefully placed it David’s cheek, using his thumb to lightly brush the short stubble. A man. Patrick was kissing a man and it was beautiful.

“Thank you…” Patrick whispered, his eyes closed as they pulled away. “Thank you for making that happen for us.”

“You’re most welcome, Mr Brewer…”

*****

Four months.

It had been four months since their first kiss and Patrick could not have been happier. He’d never been this happy in his entire life. He had a wonderful job that he loved and a boyfriend who made him happier and happier each and every day.

David took the illustrating job, inspired by Patrick’s praise, acceptance and devotion. He was soon able to tell people with pride that he was an artist, rather than try to keep his talents hidden.

They were happy, the teacher and the artist.


End file.
